What Happened at Sea?
by H3R M4J3STY
Summary: In which a reasonably aged troll wakes up not knowing who is, the pirates who sheltered him are far from ruthless, and there's maybe, possibly a team of hitmen on his trail?


Your eyes slide open slowly, your retinas burning with the harsh light being revealed to you. Regardless, you continue blink away the pain and the blurriness, your head turning slightly away from the light. Not enough to relieve you, though. A groan escapes you, and it takes you a few embarrassing seconds to realize that.

_What the fuck?_

You feel your arms twitch and shiver, your thighs following the pattern. Your breath becomes more labored as you try to push yourself up. Yeah, up. You're, like, 80% sure that you're laying down.

Unfortunately, you're making no progress on the "up".

You take a deep breath and manage to turn your head right and away from the light that was assaulting you. Well, kind of. It's a start.

You glance blearily about your surroundings. You see a bunch of crates and barrels, some of them overflowing with vegetables and fruits, others hiding away their items and leaving nothing for inference. You take another breath - through your nose, with the intent of _smelling_ - and nearly cough at the intense odor of ginger, betraying your makeshift bed.

Suddenly, the whole ground lurches, rolling you back in the direction of the light. Your muscles and motor skills are entirely useless, so you can't even scramble for a hold when you're pushed by the very sacks of ginger you'd been laying on into the wall below the source of the light. You yelp at the pain, your nose throbbing in time with your forehead, and your left wrist thrumming with barely-there discomfort. Looks like you caught yourself, even if it did jack-shit for you.

You can't help but thank the spontaneous lurching, because now you've got fear fueling your arms and letting you shakily push yourself from the wall, and back on top of the ginger. You take a breather, letting your brain give you a mental pat on the back. Then, you draw your brows together and use your new-found arms to push your torso up. You manage to sit up - _Praise Her might!_ - and you grin triumphantly at your knees.

And then your head rushes and you fall back, eyes squeezed shut.

Back to square one, it seems.

_"What do you _mean_ you don't see it?"_

_"I jutht don't!"_

Your muscles all tense up at the muffled voices and frustrated stomps above you. You wonder who could be around. You wonder if maybe they're the reason you were out cold on a pile of sacked ginger. You wonder if maybe they don't even know you're alive. Maybe you should be dead. Maybe you're on this stinking ginger to cover the smell of what they thought would be your rotting corpse. You curse yourself for not thinking that you were possibly in a very dangerous situation. You get the familiar urge to bash your head against a wall, and then your mind distracts you from that impulse by giving you a billion (un)likely scenarios you could be in. You bite back a terrified whimper and start piecing what you know together.

Lurching. Obviously you are on some kind of boat. Cargo. This could lead to a few ideas. Maybe you're on a merchant's ship. Or maybe this is the pantry of some politician's ship. Or maybe this is all stolen. Maybe this is some pirate's ship.

You groan. Too many paranoid 'maybe's.

You bite your lip and focus on your legs, swinging your legs down onto the wooden planks of the floor, making soft thudding sounds. You aren't wearing shoes. This concerns you.

However, this is very good for your situation. Less sound to alert anyone as you rise on shaking legs and hobble towards a barrel to lean on. From this new height you can see past the barrels and sacks.

You spot a set of wooden stairs leading up from this room to, if you had to guess, the deck.

But between you and the step ladder is a dog. A rather large dog, at that. In fact, you think he might be a wolf.

The wolf is sleeping, and for that you praise Her even more, because surely if he were awake he would hear your pounding heart, and if it isn't a goddamn miracle that the lurching didn't wake him up to see you moving around.

You take a tentative step around the barrel you're leaning on, thankful for the steadier leg. You creep slowly around the curve, never letting go of the edge and never looking away from the wolf.

You continue this slow pace, creeping slowly through the openings and clear spaces of floor, also making sure to keep some obstacles between you and the beast. If he were to wake up, he'd have to work through fifty pounds of carrots before getting to taste _your_ less-than-prime ribs. Your progress is almost comedically slow, since you go so far as to even hold your breath every time the wolf's ear so much as twitches.

Eventually, you manage to be within reach of the stairs. Now it was just a matter of getting up there, and avoiding detection. From both the wolf _and_ whoever was up there.

You think through the situation, trying to slam together a strategy, but you can't think of any way out. Even if you somehow managed to get on deck without being seen by anyone, there was no where you could go. You _know_ the ship isn't docked, and even if the lurching signified a depart, ships are pretty fast. You're not even sure you can swim.

You blink at the thought.

Shouldn't you be? You think it's pretty easy to know if you can swim. You either learned, or you didn't.

But that's just the thing, isn't it? You don't know if you learned or not.

You rack your brain, trying to dig up any memories of being around water, of being on a ship before, of being anywhere at _all._You can't think of a single thing besides the stench of ginger.

You choke on your breath, completely unaware of anything besides the fact _that you can't remember anything._ Your name, your _age_, your own fucking face; it's_ gone._

You marvel that you even know it's gone.

A low growl snaps you back to reality. Your eyes flick up to meet the wolf's. Your eyes widen at the green hue of its irises, and you mutter prayers under your breath.

You don't remember having religious inclinations, but you don't really remember _fucking anything_, so whatever.

The wolf continues you snarl and growl, his snout wrinkled and his lips pulled back angrily.

You slowly bring your hands up in a pacifying gesture, and for some crazy reason, it makes the wolf relax its haunches and sit back, face impassive. Your brows rise in surprise at the quick surrender, and you decide that the wolf must be domesticated, and extremely disciplined. As if that weren't clear due to its presence on a ship, unleashed or caged.

And then he starts barking.

You shout in surprise, and start shooshing at him aggressively. You hear murmuring above you and steps approaching the hatch at the top of the steps. You pull at your hair, groaning deep in your throat and staring incredulously at the wolf. He stops barking and cocks his head at you, his tongue hanging out of his mouth as he pants. You snarl at him and look around for cover. You panic at the sound of a latch and duck for cover.

You know. Like an idiot.

Well, maybe you can just camouflage in the chaos of crates and barrels. They're fairly tall.

Oh god, you're going to be found and flayed like a piece of meat, you brainless doof.

The hatch swings open, it sounds, and a soft voice drifts down. "Bec?"

The wolf yips.

You hear the sound of boots on wood, and you figure the girl is coming down. It sounded like a girl.

You hold your breath and consider your options.

Right, you have none.

Her boots click across the floor and around the post of the mast. You press your palms to your eyes. Fuck, having a memory would be great right about now. "Hey, where...?"

You stare at your hands helplessly before gasping with inspiration. You shoot up from your kneeling position and hold a hand out to either one of them. You hope they can't tell your blood color from this distance, if your eyes have started filling in. "DON'T MOVE!"

The girl turns and blinks owlishly at your odd stance. The wolf, or 'Bec', continues to pant at you.

You focus your glare on the girl, looking her over. She's wearing a pair of brown trousers and a white blouse stained with dirt and what looks like blood. She seems unarmed, but she could have something hidden in her ponytail. Her green eyes, matching Bec's oddly enough, are wide and confused. She really doesn't look like a threat.

Hell, she's not even a troll. And apparently, you are. But you don't need your memory to figure that out.

"Um..."

You tense your hand and narrow your gaze. You think you're lying, but you hope you aren't when you say,"Don't. Move. I have psionics and I'm not afraid to use them."

"Okay, chill out." Her hands raise in surrender. "Let's not be irrational, okay?"

"Don't patronize me, you thin-skinned pin-cushion. Do you have any idea how easy it is to kill your kind?" Alright, you're just bullshitting. But she does look pretty squishy. You curl your fingers slightly and she purses her lips and takes a step back. To her credit, she doesn't look particularly scared.

"I wasn't trying to be patronizing. I'm suggesting you put your hands down and we talk. Rationally. Civilly."

You feel your hands start to shake. The tension you'd had was the only thing keeping you still. It's wearing off. "Talk. Where am I?"

She tics her jaw. "You're on my ship."

"_Your_ ship?"

She smiles, revealing her crooked, dull teeth. "Yeah. I'm the captain of this beauty. Even her schematics are mine."

You furrow your brows. This sounds highly implausible. This girl, this _human,_ designed, built and sails a ship on her own? Granted, you know she has a crew, but there's that strange occurrence to factor in as well. You wonder what kind of merchant she must be, or if she's the daughter of some bigwig adventurer or some shit.

Also she looks like a kid.

"Are you even old enough to be a captain?"

"I'm old enough to know when I'm being lied to," she retorts. "I thought giving you a sense of an upper hand would calm you down, but if you're calm enough to insult the owner of the ship you're on, I guess we're good to drop pretenses. Put your arms down."

You pull your arms back to your sides. "How do you know I'm lying?"

She glances away briefly before holding out a hand. "Jade. My last name's mine and mine alone, but you're free to use that."

You make your way around the barricade of crates and take her hand, letting her lead a gentle shake. "Jade. I, uh..."

She pulls her hand back and tilts her head questioningly. "And you are?"

You bite the inside of your cheek. You don't know. You can't let her know that you don't know. Does she already know you don't know? You don't want to find out if she doesn't.

Think _faster_.

"Jadeth. Is my name."

You ass-scratching _idiot_.

She laughs and pokes your stomach. "You're cute! That's alright, you don't need to give me your real one just yet. I understand that this is a really odd situation you're in, but trust me: I'm a friend, not a foe."

You nod slightly.

You want to ask her how you ended up on her ship, what she was planning to do with you, where the ship was bound for, but your words were lodged in your throat without proper phrasing. You didn't want to come off as some kind of idiot, clarifying every other word and tripping over your intentions.

_Jadeth_. You disgust yourself.

"How are you feeling?" Jade asks, looking you over. Her gaze stops briefly at your trembling legs before meeting your gaze.

Your move. She's shown concern and wit, and left you with two options. Play off the pain in your head (thank you, inertia) and the weakness in your limbs, making you seem tougher than you are and an absolute liar. Or, share what ails you with her and trust her to. Well. Not use your vulnerability against you.

You aren't good with trusting, but you already know you're a horrible liar.

"Like shit," you say honestly.

She laughs sympathetically, which you didn't even know was a thing people did, and starts to walk back towards the steps. "I'm not surprised, _Jadeth_." You groan. "Heh, you had a rough few days with us. Some of our crew didn't think you'd make it. I'm actually shocked that you're moving around so easily."

You follow her slowly, unsure if she plans on letting you come up with her. "Days?"

She hums in a positive tone. "We're reaching the end of your third."

You stand at the base of the stairs and she's four steps up twelve. "So."

She keeps climbing, turning to gesture at your immobility. "Follow me. We'll walk and talk."

You sigh in relief. She didn't seem like she was going to keep you captive, but you never know. You start to climb the steps, but you overestimate your ability. Your left knee wobbles with the weight of your body, and you nearly tip over. Jade hops down a few steps and grabs your shoulder before you do.

"Thanks," you mutter, heart still pounding. The wolf barks a laugh.

"No problem," she dismisses. She holds out her arm and smiles. "I've been meaning to install rails, but you can hold my arm."

You take your arm, muttering another thanks under your breath. You nearly balk at the firm flesh under her sleeve.

As you make your way up, she asks you,"How much do you remember?"

Your fingers tighten around her arm slightly. "Not much."

"Nothing from your time on board? You woke up a few times, but you were pretty out of it."

"No, I don't even remember how I got here," you grouse.

"Well, you wouldn't. You were unconscious when we got you onboard." She tugs you up onto the floor. You move out of the way so Jade can close the hatch, and you can look around. You're not on the deck, as you'd thought you would be, but in the sleeping quarters. Sixteen beds, eight along each side and bunked, with two chests nailed on the floor next to each of the lower beds. You guess she mustn't have any trolls in her crew, lest they sleep without sopor, somehow.

"Okay, do you remember what happened before any of this, or would you rather I just told you how we found you?" She asks, rolling a carpet over the hatch to hide it.

"As in you were looking for me or happened upon me?" you question.

"Happened upon, naturally. We aren't hunters," she snorts. She pulls a hand to her chest and raises a brow at you. "Do I look like someone who hunts people down for a living? I think 'no'!"

You chuckle a little. "Yeah, you don't seem cut out for it, really."

She nods at the self-evident truth and crosses her arms. "Why? Do you have anyone after you?"

You hadn't considered that. Would anyone be looking for you? Hunters? Friends? A quadrantmate? Anyone?

You go for honesty. "I don't know. That's why I asked. Duh."

She gives you a look for your attitude, then continues to walk past you to another set of stairs. She stands at the base and turns around to talk to you. "I had everyone go on deck, and a good number don't trust you. Unfortunately for you, I don't like keeping my crew in the dark. Fortunately, I also don't like invading people's privacy. So we can go up and talk this whole thing over with my crew, or you can stay down here and I'll send my first-mate down to talk to you. He's the one that led us to your salvation."

You shrug. "I don't have anything to hide."

Really, you don't have anything. You have nothing. You don't remember anything. Seriously.

She nods and her shoulders relax. "Great! Then just come with me."

Again, you use her arm to support yourself as you make your way up the steps. She knocks the hatch open and pulls you up, making you stumble over your feet.

You straighten yourself up and look at the semi-circle around the hatch. There _are_ trolls in this crew, and that surprises you.

"Get him something to sit on," Jade orders.

A short troll with a blue do rag - her horns going through holes in the fabric - pushes a tall stool across the deck, smiling at you and leaving the stool next to you to walk back to the rest of the group. You don't bother trying to climb it, you just rest an elbow on the seat and lean heavily to relieve your legs.

Jade's posture is much more stern. Her face is stoic and you can tell that you've just elected her to be the judge of your fate. You swallow hard and hope you made the right choice.

* * *

><p>Note: The are much less cool on FF, but whatever. I have a ton of ideas for this au as long as I get a good response. I don't know if this has been done, but if it has, I'm definitely going to try to put a new twist on it! I was heavily inspired by because wowza. That art. Disclaimer: there's a ton of smut. There's also great pirate drawings that just spoke to me on a spiritual level, so I HAVE to credit this deity. I clearly have no idea how amnesia works, but it's my story, so fuck it. I'm absolutely never sure of my characters so please let me know if they feel strange, and I will try my best to fix it. If you see any errors that bug you, also let me know! Critique is very much welcome around these parts! This chapter seems to be the length I'm think of keeping these, and it took two days to write, so we'll see how often I update. Other than all that, I should make many notes so... yeah! I hope we can all have a fun ride! (Also I have plans for a sequel if we get through this!) Have a great day!<p> 


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